The invention relates to a compact low-pressure discharge lamp comprising a discharge vessel having electrodes and supply leads and having a lamp cap assembled from a cap, housing and mounting plate with a ballast arrangement, the mounting plate with the ballast arrangement being fitted in the interior of the lamp cap housing and having terminals for the electrical connection of the supply leads to the mounting plate.
Known low-pressure discharge lamps are increasingly replacing the incandescent lamp in buildings and residential accommodation. In the known low-pressure discharge lamps, the discharge vessel mostly comprises a singly or multiply bent tube which is arranged in a lamp cap. In this case, a mounting plate constructed as a printed circuit board and on which there is soldered an electronic ballast arrangement is integrated in the lamp cap. Production costs for these compact low-pressure discharge lamps are relatively high, since many complicated manufacturing steps are required in the production. One of these manufacturing steps is the electrical connection between the supply leads of the discharge vessel and the corresponding terminals of the ballast arrangement. In order to produce this connection, the appropriate connecting wires are presently being brought together and, for example, crimped by means of a metal sleeve.
A development of this simple connection is described in EP-A-0 452 743. This printed publication discloses a low-pressure discharge lamp of the type described at the beginning, which has holding pins with the aid of which the ends of the supply leads are aligned perpendicular to the bow-shaped connecting wires of the ballast arrangement. When assembling the lamp cap housing and mounting plate with the lamp cap, the wires which are respectively to make contact are arranged approximately at a right angle one behind another and pressed against one another resiliently with the aid of the holding pin and the inner wall of the lamp cap housing, with the result that an electrical connection is produced between the electrodes of the discharge vessel of the ballast arrangement.
However, it is disadvantageous in this prior art that such an electric connecting system is very complicated. This increases the production costs. In addition, in order to ensure reliable contacting of the elements, the rate of production for such low-pressure discharge lamps is not very high. The multiplicity of components additionally produces problems of space inside the lamp housing. It is therefore not possible, for example, to reduce the size of the housing.